Almost seven and a half years ago The Daily Post opened its virtual doors to the WordPress.com blogging community. It’s been an incredible ride, and incredible rides, too, sometimes come to an end. As of the end of this month (and 2,000 Daily Prompts, 380 Photo Challenges, 260 Community Pools, and 100 First Fridays later), we will no longer publish new posts, prompts, or challenges on this site.

Where are we going?

The decision no longer to publish on The Daily Post wasn’t an easy one. We’re enormously proud of what we put out here — and of the hundreds of thousands of stories, essays, photos, and poems members of this community have shared with us over the years. The team behind The Daily Post isn’t going anywhere; we’ll be focusing our attention on other projects that help WordPress.com remain the best place on the web to publish, build an audience, and find a community. We hope to cross paths with many of you on other sites we run, including Longreads and Discover.

Will this site stay online?

Yes. The Daily Post will be around for as long as our servers keep chugging along, which we predict to be roughly 14,320,078 years (give or take). All your conversations, pingbacks, and favorite writing prompts and Blogging U. courses will still be available, and we hope you’ll keep exploring — and enjoying — our deep archive of resources, from beginners’ tips to writing advice to blogging etiquette.

Where can Daily Post bloggers connect with each other and find inspiration?

One thing we know many of you will miss is, well, you. This is a place where many bloggers — including many who were just starting out — found like-minded people to be part of their blogging adventure. We hope you continue to develop friendships and seek out the advice and support of others in the WordPress.com community. Here are some resources to explore:

If you’re looking for answers and aren’t sure who to turn to, you’re not alone! Check out the WordPress.com Forums to see if others have asked similar questions before, or try our comprehensive support documentation.

The WordPress.com Reader is the best place to look for bloggers who are passionate about the same topics you care about. You can make your posts findable (and find others’ posts) by tagging them — for example, look for other Daily Post community members by browsing the Photo Challenge, postaday, or Community Pool topic pages.

What happens between now and May 31?

We’ll publish the last First Friday thread this week, as well as a Community Pool post and a Photo Challenge next week. (Daily Prompts will continue through May 31.) We hope you decide to participate in these final posts, and also encourage you to use their respective comment sections to make plans for keeping in touch with all your Daily Post friends.

One last note…

Our mission has always been to inspire others to blog more and to blog better, even if “blogging better” means something quite different in 2018 than it did back in 2010. The editors and contributors who’ve tended to this site have all changed, grown, and evolved, and so have the members of this community. What has stayed consistent — almost miraculously so — is the spirit of openness, respect, and camaraderie of the people who’ve made this place a part of their online journey. Yes, that’s you.

From those of us on the WordPress.com team who’ve contributed to The Daily Post over the years, thank you for being the best blogging community on the web, bar none. It’s been a total joy.

Totally agree! The daily post, in particular, was a nice constant in the blogosphere somewhere I could go either for inspiration for myself and gain like-minded followers or to read how the post inspired someone new and found many great blogs that way. So sad to hear it is ending. 😦

Hi KL Caley, It is a loss, but hopefully we can find a way to work together to have it be a (different kind, perhaps of) gain. The Daily Post had been a great inspiration. Maybe now we can inspire each other in other ways. … If you’re so inclined, stop by. I’ll do the same. Na’ama http://naamayehuda.com

Hi syncwithdeep, I hope we can all find ways to continue to network and brainstorm and be there for each other. Take good care! If you’re so inclined, stop by. I’ll visit your blog, too. 🙂 http://naamayehuda.com

Hi Katrina, indeed it had that, and I will miss it, too! It’s going to be up to us to maintain a sense of community and reach out to each other to offer support. Feel free to ask me to read something you wrote, and if you’re so inclined, stop by my blog, too. Na’ama http://naamayehuda.com

So sad about this. I got most of my followers from interacting in the Community Pool and the Photo Challenge. Thanks to everyone who followed me when they met me here. You still have a chance to follow http://comewithg.blog

It was jumping into the Community Pool for the first time that helped my fledging blog site attract the beautiful readers that still pop by to have a read…thank you so much, I will miss these forums but will continue to jump into the various pools out in the world and say “hello”!

So will I! I’ve been popping into blogs on this comment thread and discovered many I didn’t know of, and quite a few I like. So … here’s to lemonade out of lemons .. and if you want to, I’ll be happy to see you stop by! Na’ama http://naamayehuda.com

So sad! I really appreciated the Community Pool! It was a great way for me to find new blogs, help fellow bloggers, and find new followers. I am really going to miss it! Thank you, though, for leaving up all the timeless and helpful posts/articles and Blogging University; they have been tremendously helpful!! I would hate to be without those resources!

So, Ben, can you offer us a little bit more reason for why the Daily Post and Community Pool are being ended, beyond the “we all have grown/changed and life has moved on” explanation? From our perspective, the products were working very well and being highly used, so I’m sure we’re all stumped as to why such valuable resources would be shut down. Again, explain IF you can, please. But if not, that’s okay. We’ll all figure out how to adjust.

I realize that the Daily Post and Community Pool have been basically your work, so perhaps the reasoning is quite personal and beyond sharing further details as explanation. Just know that it’s sad that no one else could pick up the mantle and carry on this good work.

Thanks for your — and everyone else’s — patience, Raylene. I tried to address the questions you and others have asked in the post itself, when I said this:

we’ll be focusing our attention on other projects that help WordPress.com remain the best place on the web to publish, build an audience, and find a community.

To give a bit more context and to expand on the above, our team of editors is — and always has been — small, passionate, and one that wears multiple hats, of which The Daily Post was one (a particularly beloved one, I might add!). We contribute to WordPress.com in a variety of ways, both ones that are highly visible (like the sites we run and publish on) and ones that are more “under the hood.” And at this juncture, we came together to the decision that we need to focus more of our attention on other areas within our purview. These, too, are closely connected to WordPress.com’s mission to make publishing easy and accessible for anyone who has a story to tell, but I acknowledge that they’re connected in a different way than our work here on The Daily Post.

I very much understand the sadness, and even anger, many people have expressed in these comments — it’s a testament to the success of this community we’ve all (bloggers, writers, editors, readers) built together over many years. Knowing how successful the community is has only made the decision a whole lot tougher. We’ll continue to work on ways to engage bloggers and to help people make connections with others within this community, but they’re bound to take a different shape than they have here.

This is a strong community woven together by thousands of talented, resourceful bloggers. And I’m certain that it will continue to be strong, even if the way it’s structured and bound together changes over time.

Thanks, Ben, for getting back to us and reminding us of things you said as well as clarifying a little. Shock and panic tend to make us miss information that’s already provided. Perhaps, next week after the shock and emotions calm down, you can write another post for us that introduces us in more detail to the other venues the leadership sees as Pool alternatives. As I mentioned before, they looked a bit intimidating to me, and I know I am not always as confident as others or have the time to do a lot of exploring on the internet. Thanks again!

I would like to clarify that Ben hasn’t answered YET. It took a while for him to post his first reply, so I’m willing to wait patiently. He may not even get a chance to make another reply, and that’s okay. Change has a way of occupying every conscious moment.

You are right that the Community Pool has been the best way for us to connect, so it would be wonderful if someone can figure out a way to salvage it. But without knowing more about why it’s going away, it’s hard to know if it’s possible for it to continue.

I checked out the other options Ben mentioned–Discover and the forums. The forums link just looked too unfamiliar to me, so I didn’t venture very far into that. The Discover option looks a little promising as a venue, but it also looks a bit intimidating. To do with it like we’ve done at the Pool means you’re basically nominating yourself as an outstanding/noteworthy post to be selected and highlighted by Discover’s curator. I think that would feel a little awkward to do for every post I write. I’m not sure the curator wants to be bombarded with our multitude of “nominations,” either.

I think what I liked best about the Pool was its Facebook-like feel. You could leave a comment about your latest post and/or ask for help in some way and scroll around to see what catches your eye. And people would either see your post or not see it. No pressure or presumption of being spectacular. Hopefully, you got them curious enough to check out your blog. Or maybe they knew the answer to your questions or had some helpful feedback. It truly was a way for us to dialogue without being permanently attached to a specific blog post. (Think about it: where else could we be having this conversation right now?!)

I know the Reader is supposed to be the way to find both new posts by those you follow and new blogs by using the search tool, but there are some gems I would have never known how to search for; I discovered them only because of the Pool.

Change is hard, y’all. And unless some miracle takes place that saves the Community Pool or gives us a very similar replacement, we all must learn to adjust. Hang in there, everyone, and I hope to somehow figure out how to stay in touch with you outside of the blogger/follower relationship.

Just as you found those links overwhelming, that’s how I felt about Community Pool so having a range of forums we have more choice for creative connections as a community.
I have posted a daily prompt and weekly photo challenge daily/weekly for a couple of years. I like the idea of a teaser being out there and I sincerely tried to read 3 new bloggers a day from those forums. It felt like community as you said without having to follow ….
I wonder if the mere logistics of storing all these links, the GDPR, etc get too overwhelming for this fabulous platform.
But I do know that without being given any actual reasons unless we protest now they will not revive it once it’s deceased 😦
That will be a huge loss to all us, them and the blogging community in general!

You’re right that this could all be due to logistics and larger business concerns that we, as basically consumers, may not be aware of. GDPR could very well be a reason. We will have to be brave once again–just like the first time we jumped into this pool– and give the suggested alternative forums a try. (Who knows, we might all grow and find better ways to accomplish our goals/answer our questions, etc.) But we must try them out very soon, or as you’ve mentioned, our chance to influence will be gone!

When a friend passes, we are all at a loss for words. So, it seems, am I. Last week my pingbacks didn’t work for a couple of days, so my posts were missing from the daily prompt page. I wondered what I would do without this site I have come to depend on, to keep me writing regularly, and to form connections with others who enjoy cheerful, thought provoking discourse. The only positive note I see is that I’ll be able to sleep a bit longer, without the compulsion to rush to work early so I have a few moments to check out the day’s prompt (and lately the photo challenge), hurriedly typing a response or reading those of others. May we all find new ways to connect and move forward as we share the shock of this loss.
Pennyhttp://www.thepennymasonpost.wordpress.com
“vintage values for positive living in today’s times”http://www.mysterybookreviewsbypennymason.wordpress.com
wwwpennymasonpublications.com

Hi Penny, indeed, may we find more direct ways to be involved and maintain a community, even if it might change in some ways. I’ll miss the direct prompts but I hope to find other inspiration–in other people’s blogs, for example. 🙂 If you’re so inclined, come visit. http://naamayehuda.com

I took several Blogging U courses and participated in the Community Pool almost every week for the past two years. I’ll miss you guys for sure, but thanks for such a great platform for us bloggers to connect and grow!

Oh no! I scared y’all away! I’m new & absolutely love the challenge. Sorry to hear it’s going. I guess business is business. I have found this page amazing . . . One word, over 200 clever responses. Incredible. Thank you

While I know that this isn’t exactly a replacement, I want to mention that the archive of Daily Prompts — which I linked to in the post — is very, very deep (around 2,000). If you’re ever in need, do browse some of our older ones — they go back years!

aw ohmygod we’ll miss this so bad! The community pool was one of the bestt thingss! It was so fun to interact with other bloggers and explore new sites!
Can’t believe this.
I’m gonna miss this so muchh

NOOOOOOOO!!!! We cannot lose our online parents!!! We cannot be trusted left alone yet!!!! I really look forward to these prompts every day and will miss you all very much. I really appreciate all the work and help you all have given us through the years. I have been with WordPress since 2012 and loved the supportive environment of this company. God bless you all! ;'(

There are various writing prompts a person can find online, so I won’t miss that part, and I can see where the Community Pool and First Friday were getting so intertwined, but I will hate to see that aspect go.
I do use the Reader and Tags a lot. (Hopefully this area can be policed a little better and not flooded with tags for seller’s ads?)

You may not believe but right now as I am writing.. I can feel a kind of ache in my heart… Being a newbie in blogging, The Daily Post gave me new ideas to write upon and helped me reach out to the blogger community.
“Walking through an empty corridor with a lot of memories ” is all that I feel right now!

Thank you, Shivangi. I know it’s not quite the same thing, but being new also means that our archives of prompts and other writing ideas — they go back years — might still have a lot for you to explore, and hopefully you’ll find more stuff to inspire your writing.